A friend from work asked me the other day why I just don’t buy a desktop PC. After all, for a similarly priced laptop, I could get a desktop PC that’s multiple times more powerful and faster machine. I admit that I do miss the power offered by a desktop PC from time to time, specially when I’m playing PC games. However, I wouldn’t trade the convenience and portability that a laptop offers over more power and speed.

I want the option to be able to use a computer wherever and whenever I wished more than being able to play any PC game at full spec mode. If I really wanted to have an amazing gaming experience, I’ll just go out and buy a Playstation 3 or something.

As an example of how having a portable PC is handy, I’m actually at Toyota Werribee having my car serviced as I’m typing up this blog. I have like a couple of hours to kill while I wait for my car and I’m thankful I have a laptop. While sitting here waiting, I was able to listen to my own music, watched a bit of Back to the Future 2 and played a few minutes of Call of Duty 4.

And I don’t have to take my laptop outside the home to appreciate its portability. Having a laptop that connects to the network via Wi-Fi means I can have a PC experience anywhere in the house, be it in the bedroom or in the lounge room. I don’t have to be in a separate room and be stuck there if I want to use the PC. I could be using the PC in the same room as Raquel as she is watching a movie she likes.

Another advantage of a laptop is its battery. In the event of a power failure, my machine won’t just suddenly turn off. It has its own in-built UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) or back-up power.

As for games, I have a powerful enough laptop that it could still handle the newer PC games in the market today. I wouldn’t be able to play them in full-settings, sure, but the games are still pretty cool even with the settings turned down to what my laptop can handle. In exchange for a minor loss of visual quality in games, I get to play my games on the go, like on an hour’s train ride to and from work.

Now, if only Melbourne has free city-wide Wi-Fi like San Francisco. I could surf anywhere in the city then. For now, I’ll just have to settle with going to the few establishments that do offer free Wi-Fi in the city for Internet access (such as MagNation, Australia on Collins, Collins Place and State Library of Victoria).

I don’t have the time to do much blogging recently. I don’t have much time to do anything, really, ever since I got my new PC from Dell about a week ago.

I was in the market for a new PC. Something with a bigger screen, more memory, more hard disk space, a better graphics card and more power. I chose to get the new PC from Dell due to multiple factors: I get to choose the components that go into the machine; they are cheaper (if you compare a Dell machine with other brands’ similarly spec-ed machines); and I get a 3% discount from my company on top of the cheaper price. The only downside was that I have to order the machine online and wait for it to be assembled in Dell’s factory and shipped to my address.

Anyway, instead of relying on the company discount, I was lucky enough to have timed my purchase on the weekend that Dell decided to give out massive discounts. For the machine I wanted to buy, the discount was 15%! That’s certainly a lot better than 3%, right? But before committing the purchase, I gave my specification request another look to see if I forgot to add anything.

That’s when it hit me. If I add something to the machine that will make it go over $100, I get to have 25% off instead of just 15%! So, I added an external 160Gb hard disk to my request and recalculated the final price of the machine. It was so unbelievably cheap for what I was getting. I was so happy.

I expected the machine to arrive after three days max, but it didn’t. The reason? The Dell representative I talked to told me that the delay was due to an out-of-stock part of the machine. They already ordered for the missing part and once they have it, they will promptly send me the machine. Out of curiosity, I asked which part was missing. She said it was the external hard disk! Great. I had to wait several days more for my new PC in exchange for getting it cheap.

A few days later, I finally got the new PC. I was happy again. I couldn’t wait to take it home and start customising it according to my needs and desires. This meant installing a lot of apps I had installed in my old laptop. The problem was that not all of the apps I had in the old laptop that had Windows XP on it was compatible with Windows Vista Ultimate, which is the OS of my new PC. I only found out about the incompatibility of some of the applications after I had already installed them. So, installing, uninstalling and looking for a viable replacement app took way too much time.

Now, I think I have most of the things I wanted installed on my Windows Vista machine. Maybe now, I can finally continue playing my relatively-newly purchased game, Call of Duty 4. Maybe now, I can finally get to enjoy my new PC. Maybe now, I can finally rest and relax again.